Bottom Line
by Victoria LeRoux
Summary: At the end of the day, it's enough to leave with the mission complete and the agents alive. (this is entirely a story about Natasha Romanov taking down everyone in her way, and I have no regrets)


Thanks to Shazrolane, finaljoy, and red_b_rackham at theBetaBranch for the betas. This fic would have been marginally readable without them, but they did a fantastic job of making it enjoyable. Any remaining mistakes, like the rest of this fic, belong to me. Admittedly, there isn't much plot in this. Spoiler alert: it has guns, action, and Natasha shooting people. A lot of people. And then Steve getting shot by people not Natasha. That's it. That's the story. It's like 25% plot, 55% action, 20% whump. It's 100% Natasha Romanov being awesome.

Written for the New Year's Resolution/All The Single Ladies Challenge at TBB, when my other fic broke the word count and I needed something new. This goes into my 2015 weekly fic thing (I set a personal challenge publish a thing a week, and this is the first one I wrote, even if it wasn't published on FFNet first).

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_bottom line_

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Get in, get out – those are the orders. It's a quick mission, but not necessarily an easy one – after all, it's Hydra they're dealing with here.

Natasha creeps in first, naturally. It's not that she's better at the stealth – although she is, if only because her training had quite the head start on his – but also that she's more adept at quiet take-downs. Steve's tension pricks at her skin, but it's not something she can blame him for – they both need to be wary, quiet, because if they're discovered, they'll be outgunned. It's not as though either of them are bulletproof or rocketproof, and she knows the right missiles and numbers can take them down.

She takes the catwalk above the grounds, leaves the actual floor for him. He's more durable than Natasha, at the very least, and she's better suited to ambushes and fighting in the dark. She leads, every so often waving him from cover to reach her, quiet clicks signaling the best times for him to scamper forward because the guards are either occupied or not present at all. The two of them are a good team for this, moving quickly, efficiently, and with an air of pleasing professionalism.

She gives him two rapid clicks – a_ you're good for now, but move along_ signal – and lets her eyes move away from the door he'll pass. Not many guards in front of them, at least. A few interspersed, but not too difficult to avoid. The codes and files they're looking for should be just ahead, cleverly (but not too cleverly, because Hydra didn't have much imagination at all) hidden in the office of the building's foreman. It had been smart of Hydra to use a storage warehouse for a construction company, but Stark's automated systems had picked them up readily enough.

Natasha glances back and frowns – Steve's halted, staring at something with a worried expression on his face. He diverts from his course and she breathes into her comms, "What are you doing?"

His hands flutter, a small motion, and he slips something into his jacket. A folder, maybe, which is surprising because hardly anyone keeps actual paper copies around when electronic security deterred most casual thieves. A schedule, perhaps? Something posted publically for employees? They can discuss it later, she surmrises, hissing at him to hurry up.

She's too far to hear the door opening – it's in her blind spot, and she sees the small spark of a lighter just a hair too late to warn Steve. He doesn't notice it immediately, but his brief hesitation – even though it had just been for a single short moment – proves costly.

_Rookie mistake,_ she analyzes. He's not used to this, it's easy to forget, but he's not. She doesn't swear as he runs straight into the guard that decided to go for an early smoke break before the end of his shift.

Natasha hears the gunfire before Steve can say anything to update her, and it's an easy transition to go from creeping spider to hunting black widow.

The guard must have been taken by surprise – there's an instant before he lets off a few rapid shots where the sound of Natasha's heartbeat fills her ears. Steve reels back, in plain sight of the guard who had wandered into the vicinity. His shield's in his hand in a heartbeat, and he throws it at that guard, even as he turns back to the first one.

Her angle's bad – she misses what happens between Steve and the first guard, but she does see Steve fumble his shield catch and receive a solid hit to the face. He staggers, but Natasha's found her clear line of sight, and her pistols are ready to cover his back.

Gunfire isn't quiet though, isn't enough to keep the mission stealthy and the guards are everywhere – far more than she expected, far more than the surveillance counted which indicates bad intel or another traitor missed in the cleanup. One shot may have only drawn a handful of guards, but more shots keep them swarming, keep the alert racing through the facility and reinforcements at the ready.

It's not something they can worry about now; now the only thing they can focus on is survival and not getting the hell beaten out of them. Steve should be getting back on his feet, but he's not, he's crouching, and Natasha hears Captain fucking America say swear words she didn't learn until her second year working in SHIELD and after she'd threatened Clint into teaching them to her.

"Status?" she demands, _in that we're on a mission and it's fucked up and I just want it done and us out alive_ voice she gets, all calm and deadly and controlled and lethal. There's also a hint of worry she thinks he'll catch in her voice that turns the word from impersonal to _are you okay?_

"Missed my catch," he says, as though she didn't know that. She'll tease him about the blush she knows is on his face later, because the three words are a little more slurred than they have any right to be. "Howard did a good job making this shield, you know?"

Natasha translates that to _'it didn't break on my hard head'_, and grimaces. Hopefully it didn't break his shield instead.

"Need a minute," he adds, and his voice is thick with pain that a simple smack to the head doesn't account for. She narrows her eyes, remembering the gunfire from earlier, but doesn't comment. If it's mission critical, he'll inform her. She's learned to trust him, noble fool that he is, at least that far.

"Don't have one available," is her quick answer. "Got three moving in front, more behind."

"How many?"

"I'm up to seven, and they're still coming. You need to move towards me, we're almost to package location."

He's disappeared by now, hunkered down beneath some crates already shredded by bullets. Briefly, she sees the top of his blond head wink over the metal, and thinks that the hair looks oddly clumped, even from this distance. Blood? Knowing him, probably. She watches him stand, almost turn the wrong way, and it's up in the air whether he falls or ducks out of the way of the resulting gunfire.

"To your right," she says, and that should bring him towards her. He gives a grunt of assent, and hopefully he's realized that she wouldn't be moving him - not after the two warnings and terrible headcount - unless the matter's absolutely dire.

"Surrounded in a minute," she informs him, tone clipped in the way missions tend to make them, when only the quickest methods of divulging information can be utilized. "I'm going to give you cover fire. On my mark."

Another grunt, one she assumes is agreement and hopefully not him bleeding out on the ground. She counts off, starts firing, and then gives him the last breath to go.

_Crack. _One down. _Crack. _Clipped top of crate. _Crack. _Second down. _Crack. Crack._

A shatter and loud crash, as she nails the rope anchoring several crates at the edge of the catwalk and sends the objects onto the men below.

She gives him as much time as she dares to move towards her - he's a quarter of the way to her now, when did she move that far ahead of him, is it just the adrenaline that makes the meters seem like miles? - then barks, "Down!"

He dives for cover, comes up short of the jeep he'd been aiming for, and ends up rolling to break his fall. She's not surprised when the motion activated floodlights that click on reveal a smear of blood where he'd landed. No time to think about it now. She clips one man in his shoulder, sees the satisfying splash that shows she's nailed the artery, and knows she needs to reload in three shots.

_Crack. Crack. Crack. _Reload, hands steady and not fumbling or trembling or betraying any sign of nerves. Natasha Romanov is allowed to feel nerves, the Widow is not.

"Go." Voice steady, hands steady, heart steady. Nerves settled. Man down, another down, a third down, one aiming at her - she grabs the railing of her ledge, swings up and over and hits the set of rails perpendicular to her, vaults over, rolls away, comes up, tracks Steve's stumbling movements, shoots the one aiming at her.

"Cover," Steve's almost below her, but a bullet strikes the shield on his back and sends him stumbling. The worst thing about his darkened uniform is it doesn't show blood as easily as the patriotic version, and even if SI markets the fabric as "bullet proof", it's common knowledge that bullet proof just means the bullets get to slow down a little more before they start going through flesh. Natasha's fairly certain she can pick up the stain of blood, even against the dark navy he'd chosen to wear.

Steve makes his next cover location, and he appears steadier now. He hadn't lied, apparently, he'd really just needed a minute even if they hadn't had one to spare at the time. Natasha reloads, even though her clip isn't empty. She'd cleared out the men between her and Steve on her first round of firing, but despite her steady firing, the group behind him continues to grow.

It reminded her of the old video games Clint likes to get drunk and play, where the guards keep spawning and spawning until they cover the entire TV screen. Luckily, they haven't reached that point yet but _(cut off one head, two more pop up)_ it's no comfort. They are just two, after all, and even the most skilled could be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers. Given enough time, those numbers could easily arrive.

"Go," she snaps out, and she's firing and firing and firing, just like on the range and in her training and during her first kill, until she's in the comforting mindset of the Black Widow. Even if the Widow was meant to be an assassin and not an overt soldier, the number of her enemies don't matter. It's easy enough to take them down in a situation like this, where the enemy doesn't realize how outmaneuvered and outgunned it truly is. She picks them off easily, one at a time, sending them toppling to the ground with the grace of bowling pins.

Down. Down. Down. Miss _(getting sloppy soldier)_. Down. Down. Down. Switch weapons before that one runs empty, don't miss a beat. Someone's below you - she tracks him for a moment, recognizes Steve. _(ally. Don't shoot.)_ Down. Down. Down.

"Retrieving the package," he murmurs, and she hums at him. One thing has gone right - the room with the codes is right below her present location, and Cap takes advantage of it. His voice is steadier, (_condition stable, less likely to endanger mission,_ Widow notes) even as she continues to fire. Pause. Reload one gun. Fire. Reload other. Fire.

"Getting crowded, Cap," she says, and her voice is cool, her mind still in that state where the objective is all that matters. A shot lands surprisingly close to her, and she takes the man down, not bothering to move locations or go to better cover.

"Almost done," he replies, and then, "Good to come out?"

The men are trying to organize below. She hits the ranking officer in the throat, watches his men scatter like startled pigeons. (_'Yep', Natasha pops the 'p', but it's the Widow that answers._) "Yes," the Widow says, coolly - not quite impatiently - but close enough.

"Staying above?" he asks. She's surprised he thinks the question is worth asking, but gives the signal for agreement. She ghosts along the catwalk as he makes his way out, tracking his movements and watching for incoming trouble.

When she judges the timing is right, the Widow drops a gun into its holster, pulling a knife into her left hand and vaults over. She lands in the midst of a group of three cowering near the exit - well, lands on one's shoulders, and sends a knife into another's throat. By the time Rogers catches up, they're all down and she gives him an exasperated glance that demands_ 'what took you so long?'_

The shock of his appearance is enough to jar her, and Natasha narrows her eyes. Steve's pale, panting, squinting through the blood running into his eyes.

"Friendly fire?" she asks wryly, and he stares at her in confusion until she taps her forehead. Steve follows her eyes with his hand and looks almost surprised when his fingers come away coated with blood. "Shield?" she clarifies, even as she grabs his wrist and pulled him after her.

He shakes his head a little - not in disagreement, but more like a dog shaking off water, a quick disregarding of any pain or danger. He says something that might be confirmation, but Natasha just clenches her jaw to keep back any sharp words. _Captain America is fully capable of judging his own physical state,_ she reminds herself, as though he hadn't been beaten half - or three quarters, really - to death and still tried to complete a mission several months prior.

He almost runs into the fence they'd entered through earlier, and she pushes his head down, nudging him to crawl before her. She takes a moment to pick off an enterprising guard before she backs through the hole they'd made, almost knocking Steve over when he doesn't react rapidly enough.

They make their way to the car hidden just off the road a quarter mile away, moving quickly enough to stay ahead but slowly enough to not send Steve toppling to the ground. Natasha nudges him upright when he almost falls over, keeping him balanced as he almost trips. He's steadier on his feet, sure, but not nearly as much as he should be. She doesn't offer to support him, and he doesn't ask for it.

Natasha smiles at the sight of their car when they reach it. It's nondescript, with a good enough engine to get them started and a poor enough exterior to make any Hydra members think twice about if SHIELD would have furnished them with such a vehicle.

Steve's stabilized more since they began their quick walk, and when she glances at him, he's taken the opportunity to wipe at the fresh blood on his head - it looks as though the shield struck him at his hairline, which will make bandaging it a bitch. The action doesn't do much for him, just smears around the blood, but it at least shows he's still functioning.

"Backseat," she orders as she opens the door. If her words are clipped, it's because they're hurried for time. "Lie down and start bandaging yourself."

Steve obeys rather meekly for him, with a minimum of protests and grumbles. Like her, he's probably aware that they can't go to the nearest hospital or call for an early extraction. They have two days before their scheduled pickup - enough time for their disappearance from a town an hour and a half's drive away to not be connected with the ruckus here, and it won't help if Steve bleeds out before then.

She hits the nearby road, even as the gate begins to blare an alarm. They don't have long before pursuit begins - she'd left them disorganized enough to have a head start, but the chaos the agents caused will only provide a temporary relief at best. A quick glance reveals Steve's obeyed her in the backseat, gauze in his hands, and he makes a face at her when she meets his eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Got shot?" she asks as they hit a particularly brutal bump on the road and he winces. She's not without trace amounts of sympathy, after all. "What did you stop for earlier?"

"Bullet went through. I should be already healing, but I managed to hit myself twice in the head." Impressive. She'd only noticed the shield incident - she backtracks in her memory, recalls his many falls. Maybe the guard had gotten him when he fell, or he'd brained himself on a crate going for cover. End result is the same and they can discuss where the mission went wrong later. At least he'd graduated to full sentences, now. "Computer codes. At least, I think they are. We can give them to Stark to review."

Natasha makes a noise of vague sympathy as they hit another poorly paved bump. The town they'd holed up in isn't far, and she drives at a reasonable pace. The false trails they'd taken care to lay in advance would send Hydra to every town in the area, leading the enemy to one dead end after another.

The driving relaxes Natasha, lets her ease herself fully back into her own skin and pushing the Widow deeper down. Steve doesn't last long – after draining two bottles of water, he falls asleep on the backseat, head twisted at a position against the door that would leave anyone else with a sore neck in the morning. She doesn't quite have the energy – or the spirit – to tease him about his mishaps.

Yet, that is. She appreciates a conscious opponent whose wit isn't dulled by injuries, so she can afford him a bit of recovery time before she starts to heckle him.

Later, however, after a day or so in a shitty motel room eating Dominos, she'll tease him about it. They can review over a beer (at least, she'll have a beer. If the serum didn't speed up his healing enough, she'd leave him with water) the mission, its failures, its successes.

Still, both of them are alive and the package secured. Perhaps they'd even managed to secure some extra intel, if Steve's little folder pans out properly. Natasha can't count it as a failure, even if it isn't quite a success.

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Thanks for reading! Please consider reviewing on the way out.

-V


End file.
